Ponderings and Prelude to Farewell
by Morrigan428
Summary: Miaka and Hotohori discuss the death of Nuriko and Chirko
1. Default Chapter

DISCLAIMER: I don't own it. I don't have money. And I don't think I have anymore jellybeans to give to you if you sue me either, so please don't. FY belongs to Yuu Watase, or Watase Yuu (depending on what country you live in), Flower Comics, Pioneer and whoever else has rights to it. 

Warnings: None really. Yes, OMG! A fic I've written isn't PG-Rated for once! Other warnings: Angst, lame attempts at humor (I had a migraine when I wrote it so cut me some slack), spoilers, odd, ooc, and it's my first FY fic.

Pairings: Well, this fic isn't really a love fic, it's more of a fic about someone resolving to love someone and to contemplate the loss of friends. But the dominant pairings in this fic are Hotohori with Houki and Miaka with Tamahome. 

Author's Note: It's not shounnen-ai or yaoi. But some statements that Hotohori makes could give that impression. Feedback is welcome. 

PONDERINGS AND A PRELUDE TO FAREWELL

Miaka stopped when she saw the heavily concentrated look on Hotohori's face. She had to admit in a fleeting thought as he watched day surrender to dusk at the window he stood before, that the golden light made his beautiful, nearly feminine features even more attractive. But the thought had come and gone so quickly she hadn't even been aware of it. He was married now and she was securely with Tamahome. She had spent a short period of time talking with Houki alone. Houki's looks and parts of her personality still took Miaka by surprise when she thought about them. She shook it off and crossed the hall to where the Emperor continued to stand motionless as if sculpted to look transfixed by the lowering fire-star in the sky. She waited a moment or two then leaned against the wall next to the window. 

"Do you have everything that you need, Miaka?" he finally said without looking at her. 

"Yes." she answered not really sure why she suddenly felt nervous. Perhaps it was because deep down she knew that he was still in love with her. That was really the subject that Miaka had come to talk to him about. Somewhere deep down she was keenly aware of it despite his seemingly drop dead sincerity and acceptance that he appeared to have in supporting she and Tamahome taking the final step in their relationship- to be married. She was relieved and slightly confused by his acceptance and slight twinkle of joy that he it appeared he had in his wife. He sounded almost happy when he introduced her to them. Almost. 

She felt a jolt go through her when he finally looked at her. His face registered no expression- but his eyes... his eyes were clouded over with pain. "Hotohori?" Miaka spoke tentatively. "What are you thinking about? You look so..." 

Miaka didn't finish. She had an idea about what some of his thoughts COULD be turned to. Chirko... She caught herself from the sob that was forming in her throat. Nuriko... Or could it be about his unrequited love for her? She didn't dare guess for sure. 

He smiled gravely. "Many things. Shouldn't you be with Tamahome?" 

"Well, he and Tasuki got into another fight. I didn't want to stick around for it." 

He nodded and smiled again, then turned his gaze out upon the encroaching night. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked suddenly. 

"What?" Miaka asked dumbfounded. 

"Chirko... Nuriko...", he said in a whisper, looking down at the ground when he spoke Nuriko's name. 

"I really don't know what to say concerning them. I..." Miaka's eyes flashed with pain. She thought about how Chirko died by his own hand, then how violently Nuriko had. "I really don't know what to say. I..." she stopped unable to go on. She didn't want to cry. 

"We will miss them." Hotohori said with a voice of finality. "I suppose that may be considered the understatement of the year. Right Miaka?" He said it with a straight face, but if Miaka didn't know better, she'd swear he was trying to make her laugh. Miaka only nodded. 

"Nuriko is what has been dominating my thoughts. I know he challenged one of the Seiryuu Seven. I know he died violently, but with great honor. However, I still find it difficult to imagine the Nuriko I knew dying that way. Or even being dead. It's quite disturbing. Chirko's death was also a shock... He was so young and I hardly was given a chance to know him. But Nuriko..." Hotohori stopped mid- sentence and looked up at Miaka with hurt eyes. He looked away quickly back to the midnight beyond. "Forgive me. It seems I was rambling." 

Miaka felt both touched and heartbroken. Touched that he let her be the person that he opened up to about some of his inner most feelings. Heartbroken because he didn't feel he had a right to continue. To let his feelings out. "It's okay. Really, I don't mind. You can go on with what you were saying." Miaka encouraged, forcing herself to smile. 

Hotohori looked at her out of the corner of his eye, then down and back up again. Suddenly his relaxed posture changed and took on the one she was used to- the tall, proud, courtly stature of royalty. She looked away. Nuriko... Nuriko had always walked and stood with the same posture. The same feline-like grace. She could feel the emotions rising with in her again. The tears. She wanted him back! She wanted Chirko back too! It wasn't fair that they had to die for their cause! {Don't cry, Miaka.} For some reason she could hear Nuriko's voice saying this to her in her mind. {... It's alright. I'll always be with you. Always.} 

"Are you alright, Miaka?" she heard Hotohori ask. She gave him an unconvincing nod. 

"Your crying." he accused. 

"I'm sorry. But... but I'd really like for you to go on with what you were saying. Go ahead." she said burying the feelings back into their respective spot again. 

Hotohori stared at her unconvinced. All he had apparently just done was make her feel bad again. For some reason, he wanted to talk about the premature deaths of his friends. About his wife and the child she carried with in her. To maybe finally get closure on his feelings for the priestess. He looked away from her. He'd better not. "I'd rather not. What I have said already has upset you. I do not wish to cause you further distress." 

"No it's okay!" Miaka almost shouted. "For some reason since it happened no one's really talked about it. That's even more painful." Miaka said looking down. 

Nuriko's death especially had seemed to be a taboo subject. No one wanted to talk about it in detail unless they had to. No one spoke of their feelings about it. It didn't seem right. Everyone tensed up at the subject. Yet, she knew that feelings needed to be spoken of. "Please tell me whatever it was you were going to say. "Miaka finished. 

Hotohori's brow creased in painful reasoning and he turned back to the window again looking up at the stars. He remained silent. Miaka scowled then stepped up to the window and looked up at the portion of sky he was gazing at so profoundly. She heard him let out a spurt of chuckles. "Nuriko's constellation is shining brightly tonight. Just as he did. Perhaps..." Hotohori looked at Miaka with a twitch on his lips, "...perhaps he is watching. And I think he may agree with you." Miaka couldn't help but smile at the thought of it. 'Nuriko, I think, didn't deserve the death he was dealt. No one deserves to die that way. No one deserves to die as Chirko did. No one. Did... did Nuriko suffer?" Hotohori's voice seemed shaky with his question. "Chirko's death was still fresh in everyone's minds... and everyone was there to witness it. But Nuriko..." 

Miaka nodded and looked in to the darkness of the hall where no one could see her tears. "So is Nuriko's death." she said bitterly. Her eyes bugged out with that statement. It had come out before she realized it. She could still see Nuriko laying there trying to sound unconcerned about his wounds. Trying to smile. She could still see the blood pouring out of him- draining his young body of life. "I'm afraid so. Probably more than even he realized. He held on for so long... then died. If he'd just held on for a few more minutes...", Miaka couldn't hold it in anymore. The tears unleashed themselves. There wasn't anyway that Chirko could've been saved, but Nuriko if he'd just hung on for a few more precious minutes Mitsukake would've got there and he wouldn't be dead. Poor Mitsukake..." But the worst part is... that I think Mitsukake blames himself for not being able to save him. Or Chirko. It wasn't his fault at all. I know that. It wasn't anybody's fault. But... if only Nuriko had hung on..." she cried heavily turning away all together from the Emperor. 

"Miaka, no matter how he died, I think that Nuriko had become satisfied with his work and that he'll always be with us. Always watching over us. I think he had taken care of all that he could have at this point. And I think even in death... he'll always be there to protect you. But..." Hotohori tried to hold in tears of his own as he reached a hand out to lay on Miaka's shoulder, "I know it doesn't make any of it easier to handle, nor make his death easier to understand. Even the halls of this palace still echo with his presence." Then a twitch on Hotohori's lips occurred and turned into a rumbling laugh. Miaka looked at him as if he was insane. He looked back at her. He didn't know why what he just thought of seemed so funny at the time, but at the moment it was hilarious. The more Miaka stared at him as if she thought he was a basket case, the funnier it got. 

"Ah, Hotohori? What's wrong with you?" 

"I was just thinking about something after my last statement..." he made an effort to control himself but was unsuccessful. 

"WHAT?" Miaka yelled. 

"You know we never did get that wall fixed that Nuriko broke that time when he threw the railing at that Kutou spy." he said a degree of control coming back. 

Miaka chuckled, but she didn't find it half so amusing as Hotohori did. That was the night that Tamahome left to go to Kutou for the sake of halting the war and her own as well. 

"I'm sorry Miaka. I know that that night marked the beginning of one of your most painful experiences and I don't even know why I just thought of it. But for some reason what Nuriko did and said at that time seems hilarious at the moment." he said his laughter now turned into a contented twitch on his lips. He needed to laugh. Nuriko's death was painful for him too. More so than he imagined it would be. 

"Well, I guess it gives you something to remember him by." Miaka said smiling. 


	2. Ponderings and Prelude Part2

"Yes, I guess it does." Hotohori stated, his miniscule time of laughter in such a bleak time past. He turned back to the window. "But in all seriousness, I want to cry too, but for some reason the tears won't come. My heart is welled up with them but they won't break free. I'm almost frightened by it." 

Miaka watched him as he turned his gaze up to the constellation again. "Maybe that's Nuriko's way of telling you not to cry." Miaka clapped a hand over her mouth. //Where had that statement come from?// 

"Perhaps." He looked at her awkwardly for a moment then turned away. An uncomfortable silence followed. 

"Houki seems like a nice person." Miaka said after shifting uncomfortably for a minute or two. 

"Yes, she is. Very." 

Miaka was able to detect the small hint of sadness in his voice. Also a sudden resistance to talk about the subject. Miaka smiled. "It really is quite shaking to see someone who looks so much like Nuriko. Really it is." 

"Yes. As I said, it seemed as though Nuriko's soul was trying to guide us to one another. It kept bringing us to together. I... care deeply for her." 

"She cares deeply for you too." Miaka said in a sweet tone. 

"Yes, I know," Hotohori's reply was grim. Miaka shifted uncomfortably as he continued. "Since she and I first met, I've been going over something continuously in my mind. And the more I think about it the more questions that come to my mind." 

"Questions?" Miaka inquired with a cock of her head. 

"Yes. When I thought Nuriko was a woman, there was something with in me that refused to let me think of him in a romantic way. Even I had to admit Nuriko, then known as Lady Korin, was attractive, but I could never feel anything to make me love this Korin in the manner a man is drawn to a woman. I could only see a comrade. But the first time I saw Houki I burned for her. I wanted to know her. I..." Hotohori stopped with his next train of thought as if remembering who he was speaking to. Miaka watched a blush begin to glow on his cheeks and spread to his whole face. 

Miaka couldn't help but giggle. "You what?" she prompted. 

"I, ah..." he stumbled the blush deepening. 

"You what?" she teased. 

"I wanted her." he squeaked out embarrassed. "I didn't know why. But somehow I also feel that Nuriko wanted it to be that way." 

"She doesn't just look like him, you know." Miaka replied. "She also sorta acts like him in some ways." 

"I know, it seems as though all of Nuriko's feminine aspects are with in her yet fused with her own individual personality. Which makes me wonder..." Hotohori shifted as if uncomfortable with his next thought. "If Nuriko had truly been a woman, truly been Lady Korin, would she have been my Empress instead of Houki...? Would Korin have been the mother of my child?" 

"Child?" Miaka repeated shocked. 

"She did not tell you? I figured in your little talk together that she would have. Houki is pregnant." 

Miaka's eyes bugged out. "Man, that was quick..." she mumbled. "You go Hotohori!" 

"What?" Hotohori asked having not clearly heard her, and what he did hear he didn't understand. //Where does she want me to go?// 

"Oh nothing!" Miaka said taking on an innocent air. 

"Oh..." was Hotohori's simple reply as he looked at her suspiciously out of the corner of his eye, then he concentrated harder on the stars above. "Do you think if Nuriko had really been a woman... that he would have... she would have died?" Hotohori asked more to the heavens above than to Miaka. Before Miaka could answer he went on, "But there's no use dwelling on it, is there?" he looked over and spotted a glimmer around Miaka's wrists. "Are those Nuriko's bracelets?" 

"Yes. You should have seen them when they changed. They were beautiful." Miaka said looking at them sparkle under the night's sky. She took them off and set them on the ledge of the window. 

"Like him..." Hotohori stated taking the bracelets and moving them through his fingers thoughtfully. Miaka looked at him peculiarly. That seemed like a strange comment coming from the Emperor she knew. Another silence followed. 

"Hotohori?" Miaka began nervously. She had wanted to ask him this from the beginning. "Does Houki know... how you feel about me? Or used to?" 

Hotohori tensed up again. "Yes, she knows that I'm in love with you." 

"So you still are? I thought maybe Houki..." 

"No Miaka, I could never forget you that easily. I care deeply for Houki but I still love you." Hotohori said turning to look at her, sorrow written in his eyes. He looked down them back up again. " Tomorrow we go into battle. You should rest. Besides, Tamahome is probably looking for you." 

"Yes..." Miaka knew a dismissal when she heard one. Hotohori clearly wanted her to go. In a way, she was glad. She didn't like how uncomfortable the atmosphere suddenly got. "I'll go see what he's up to. I'll see you later then." 

Hotohori nodded regally and turned away. When he heard her footsteps fade he raised his eyes to the heavens again. He stared at Nuriko's constellation thoughtfully. Suddenly he felt something wet slide down his cheek. //So Nuriko, NOW you'll let me cry for you. Thank you for saving Miaka this sight.// Houki was another subject that plagued his thoughts and was another reason he cried. He wanted to love her. He knew she was caught in the same trap as he. Fated to be in love with someone who didn't return their affections. He cared deeply for her, was overwhelmingly attracted to her, but nothing more. Houki had seemed so understanding of his feelings for Miaka, and he knew without a doubt she was Nuriko's last gift to him. His gift to save Hotohori from the loneliness that he'd always known. Nuriko's gift... //Nuriko, you just had to take care of everybody, didn't you? Even me. Even at your own expense. I will cherish your gift. Your last gift. The most special one of all the gifts I have ever received.// Hotohori sighed deeply caught by the alien convulsions that were forming tears in his chest. 

He didn't want Houki to suffer in the same way that he did. To be in love with someone who could not or refused to return your feelings. He would try harder. He would love her- be IN love with her. But... He almost choked on his next thought. What if he died first though? Who knew what tomorrow's battle held in store for him? Or the day of battle after that, or the next, each day turning in an endless circle with that question hanging on his lips until this forsaken war is over. Everyone's destiny was uncertain. But truly, what if he died before he could honestly say that he loved Houki? What then? Suddenly a look of profound defiant determination glowed on his face. Even if he had to overcome the passages of death itself to do it, he made his mind up to love her fully, and the child in her belly unconditionally. 

He wanted Miaka to be happy. She was with Tamahome now, so he was sure she would be. No, he knew she would be. It was long past due for him to begin to let go of her. He knew he couldn't force himself not to be in love with Miaka, but that wasn't what was needed, right? He just needed to make room in his heart for Houki. He would love her in the way a wife deserved to be loved. He wouldn't fall into the same trap his father had. Taking numerous wives, helpless women that had no choice but to marry him, because he was the Emperor, then tiring of them easily after the best years of their lives had gone, and the first signs of aging began to show. He wouldn't do that to Houki. Houki had come to love him as a man, not as the Emperor, not as a celestial warrior. But him. 

He knew Nuriko led them to each other. Which was why he felt even more pained by his death. He never had a chance to thank him. He had lost in Nuriko not only a good friend and confidant, but also his possible savior from the trap of loneliness that always accompanied his royal position. //I can not be there to say it in person, but truthfully, thank you Nuriko." 

Hotohori turned and stared down the black hall that Miaka had disappeared in. //I vow I will love her Nuriko, just as you would have wanted me to. But your right I have to let go of Miaka.// He looked up at the stars then at the bracelets that he still held in his hands. For some reason, Miaka left them behind. He would have to return them. //Until I see you again Nuriko...// He looked ahead and with a melancholy tone muttered," Be happy with Tamahome Miaka. Nuriko and Miaka- sayonara to both of you... friend and priestess." 

He clutched the bracelets painfully tighter, holding his eyes shut as he felt more tears fall from his eyes. "Sayonara." 

~Finish~


End file.
